This was a great reply - very factual, polite, and informative - thank you.
Here's my issues:
1. This has been done, in several ways. A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable.
I am always skeptical, in any field, over a claim made over a 50 year timespan. Actually, any predictions made over specifically a 30 to 60 year timespan set off alarms for me. It's the longest timespan that will occur within your own life, so it gains some credibility, but you're not really going to be held accountable to it. Similar claims are made when recommending finance policies, for instance. It's far enough out that you can't test and falsify before taking the recommended course of action.
2. Predictions of sea-level rise over the shorter term have also been made. These are falsifiable.
This would be fantastic, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for and haven't seen. Do you have links?
3. There was no event of "destroying data in response to an FOI request," - or if there was, there's no direct evidence of it in the leaked emails.
"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based."
"The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation."
"In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”"
4. No, the burden of proof is on those who want to show that the null hypothesis, that human-produced CO2 has the potential to cause direct harm through accelerated warming, is incorrect. The reason this is the null hypothesis isn't because the scientists say so, it's because it's the best physical model we have.
This was actually quite an insightful point, which I'll think about. The models right now come across incomplete at best, so spending trillions on that risks destroying a lot of health, wealth, happiness that those resources could be deployed to instead. If there's global warming, what's the extent of it? How much is caused by humans? What are the pros and cons of climate change? And so on. These questions aren't answered, and there's recommendations for trillions of dollars of resources and great amounts of social and economic controls to be put in place. I tend to think the burden of proof on that should be extremely high, but your point about our CO2 models is interesting and I'll think it over.
The models right now come across incomplete at best, so spending trillions on that risks destroying a lot of health, wealth, happiness that those resources could be deployed to instead. If there's global warming, what's the extent of it? How much is caused by humans? What are the pros and cons of climate change? And so on. These questions aren't answered, and there's recommendations for trillions of dollars of resources
My first thought (speaking as a scientist myself) was that ofcourse these models are incomplete. Climate change is difficult. Hell, predicting the weather with any degree of accuracy 7 days out is difficult. To put together a cohesive document spanning hundreds (thousands?) of scientists and have them all agree with its contents seems like an almost impossible task for me to envision. I have trouble agreeing with my own co-workers sometimes and we work on the same funded project!
The argument about spending the money elsewhere is complete bull. Have you ever applied for government grants... lets say from the NSF? The money is always globally appropriated and the grants are always applicable to many fields. You don't get funded based on opinion. You get funded over a 30-40 page proposal that you clearly state your objectives and what you will use the money for. Then you are put through a thorough vetting process where the granters look at ALL the proposals being made (undoubtedly there are hundreds) and choose the one that meets their criteria the best. They also look at the track record of each of the groups based on prior research and the like. On some governmental projects, they'll even tell you certain objectives that you propose which they will not fund.
People make the same point about stem cell research and it drives me crazy.
There is always benefits to funding basic scientific research. Just look at the output from Fermilab and CERN over the last 20 years--MRIs and the Internet most notably.
But getting back to the climate change models. These are enormous problems to tackle. They have supercomputers chugging on data 24-7. Just envision trying to track cloud formation to see if there is a pattern in storms-- you've got to find some way to measure all that and then you have to compute it to form a predictive model. I'm almost certain there will be missing or omitted data. Science is not clean.
Regarding 3. There was no event of "destroying data in response to an FOI request," - or if there was, there's no direct evidence of it in the leaked emails.
Your response doesn't show that the data was destroyed in response to the FOI request, only that the FOI request got the response that it had been destroyed.
Other than that you made some very good points with a cool head, and I appreciated them.
Here's my issues:
1. This has been done, in several ways. A prediction has been made that, if we limit our total CO2 emissions to (from memory) 650GT between now and 2050, the anthropogenic portion of global warming will be limited to 2 degrees. This is falsifiable.
I am always skeptical, in any field, over a claim made over a 50 year timespan. Actually, any predictions made over specifically a 30 to 60 year timespan set off alarms for me. It's the longest timespan that will occur within your own life, so it gains some credibility, but you're not really going to be held accountable to it. Similar claims are made when recommending finance policies, for instance. It's far enough out that you can't test and falsify before taking the recommended course of action.
2. Predictions of sea-level rise over the shorter term have also been made. These are falsifiable.
This would be fantastic, this is exactly the kind of thing I've been looking for and haven't seen. Do you have links?
3. There was no event of "destroying data in response to an FOI request," - or if there was, there's no direct evidence of it in the leaked emails.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article693...
"SCIENTISTS at the University of East Anglia (UEA) have admitted throwing away much of the raw temperature data on which their predictions of global warming are based."
"The UEA’s Climatic Research Unit (CRU) was forced to reveal the loss following requests for the data under Freedom of Information legislation."
"In a statement on its website, the CRU said: “We do not hold the original raw data but only the value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data.”"
4. No, the burden of proof is on those who want to show that the null hypothesis, that human-produced CO2 has the potential to cause direct harm through accelerated warming, is incorrect. The reason this is the null hypothesis isn't because the scientists say so, it's because it's the best physical model we have.
This was actually quite an insightful point, which I'll think about. The models right now come across incomplete at best, so spending trillions on that risks destroying a lot of health, wealth, happiness that those resources could be deployed to instead. If there's global warming, what's the extent of it? How much is caused by humans? What are the pros and cons of climate change? And so on. These questions aren't answered, and there's recommendations for trillions of dollars of resources and great amounts of social and economic controls to be put in place. I tend to think the burden of proof on that should be extremely high, but your point about our CO2 models is interesting and I'll think it over.
Thanks for the reply.